(16 Months Later)
Zane was dressed in all black clothes, akin to that which you would expect from an assassin. On his face, he donned a plain black mask with the only details being how well it conformed to him. Zane crept around the top of a cliff, setting down small metal balls. This was an important area, and he had to secure it as soon as possible. The cave below held so many potential allies, Zane couldn't wait to see what happened next.
Pulling Zane out of his musing, a small pole came out of the top of each of the spheres and made a quiet droning noise. The noise was them doing their job of thing Energon signals, but the caveat was they were too loud, loud enough to draw unwanted attention. Zane looked down the cliff to see eight Vehicons milling about with Energon in... Wheelbarrows? Zane neither knew nor cared. Zane pulled out his IPod and logged in. He sent a quick email to "I'm_Da_Boss" saying: Now. The moment he sent it, Zane threw another ball down the cliff. It made a rather loud noise upon impact, so the Vehicons moved closer to investigate. A moment later, green gas spewed out, causing the Vehicons to lose their balance and fall, as if overcharged.
At that exact moment, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and Ultra Magnus ran out from the trees. The Vehicons were only able to look over before their optics powered down. Zane jumped off the cliff, slowing down at the last second while covered in a purple aura. He walked into the dark cave, the Autobots in tow.
At a juncture, Zane took a right, having no clue what was in the left and not having the time to explore. Soon, he neared a large cavern with numerous capsules filled with stasis fluid and growing Predacons. At an unspoken order, the Autobots ran forward, shooting straight ahead. Laser blasts soon came toward them, all of which missed. After Shockwave seemed to have a conversation with a computer, most likely with Starscream -that tidbit Zane remembered from the show- he pressed a button and electricity seemed to travel along wires to the capsules containing Predacons. While the Autobots looked at the capsules, Shockwave got away via a Groundbridge.
Zane's eyes glowed purple as the wires broke, preventing the electricity from getting to the capsules.
"Hurry, to the entrance!" He yelled, then heeded his own advice. The Autobots followed. Halfway there, a Groundbridge opened up, and out walked the anthropomorphic Predaking.
"You," growled Predaking, eyes narrowing at the Autobots. At this, Zane piped up.
"Excuse me, I have something you may wish to know." Zane said in his best copy of childlike innocence. Predaking growled while looking down at Zane.
"Autobots let younglings fight their battles? I thought you had more honor than that." Predaking growled. Zane merely smirked as Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus shifted into Malice and Havoc respectively, Bumblebee into Agony, and Bulkhead into Misfortune, who was wearing the modified Apex Armor. Predaking looked confused, before Zane spoke once more.
"You see, we are not the Autobots. We are here to prevent your betrayal."
"I would never betray Megatron!" Snarled Predaking. Zane shook his head, shocked by the mere idea as much as Predaking himself
"No, no, no. I mean to prevent you from being betrayed. Megatron ordered Energon to be brought out of this cave to alert the Autobots. He wanted to have them destroy the clones so you would focus your rage on them. He thinks that you will lead a revolution when you realize your combined might is stronger than the Decepticons."
"He.. he wouldn't." Predaking sounded a little less sure.
"Really, well then, can you download a video for me. It is a recording of events past and those yet to come. You may tell me what you think after you watch it."
Predaking hesitantly got down on one knee and offered Zane his servo. Zane crawled on and reached for his wrist. A small port opened up, and Zane plugged his IPod in. A few moments later, Zane got off of the servo, not . A long two minutes later, Predaking roared in rage. When later asked by Omicron, Zane would coyly pretend he played no part in it. After all, all that he did was show the episode Evolution, and perhaps tamper with some the strong emotions: anger and hatred. Predaking raced to the capsules, and the still-assembled Chosen fizzled out of existence.
XxXxXxX
An hour later, Predaking calmed down. Zane decided to try to hold a civil conversation while Predaking stood near the computer.
"Predaking, may I ask you a question?"
"You just did." Predaking replied grumpily. Zane took that as permission.
"I understand that you feel betrayed. Anyone would. May I ask you to join me? We can make both factions fear you, and even help your species continue. Whatever you need, I will get."
"Betrayed?! I swore allegiance to Megatron. He stabbed me in the back. Why would I trust you?"
"I only want your species to survive and thrive. Well, I also have to find a way to make sure the Cybertronians survive, but I want your species to do so much better. After all, you are technically not part of this war. You should be completely innocent, yet Megatron made you do the unthinkable, considering your age. So, will you join me to end this war, to get your revenge, to get me out of this debt of mine?" Predaking cocked his head, eyes narrowing at Zane. Zane paused for a moment before Predaking asked a question, voice full of suspicion.
"What debt?"
"I am not here by chance. I am the prodigy of the most powerful entity on Earth. Or, should I say in the Earth?"
"No..." said Predaking, backing up slightly. Zane, wanting to have some fun with this, started glowing purple and floating in the air.
"I am Zane Livingstone, prodigy to Unicron the Chaos Bringer. I am to save Cybertronians and Primus. And you will prove helpful, especially since you are in my debt. After all, I made sure your species survived the day. The Autobots don't trust you, the Decepticons fear you enough to kill your species and risk the wrath of just you in order to prevent you from leading a revolution, and there is not a chance in Hell that the humans would treat you as a friend. So I am going to ask once. I want you to consider your answer carefully. Will you join me on my quest?"
Predaking made no noise, causing Zane to think he thought incorrectly and that Predaking would not be a friend.
A long, drawn out minute later, Predaking finally answered.
"You saved my species, that is true. I may not be able to fight a war on two fronts while also training my army at the same time. Very well. If I agree, I will fight with you. But not for."
"Of course not, you are a king. The King of the Predacons, to be exact. It would only do for us to be of equal standing." Zane was sure at this point that Predaking would say yes, and that he would not come to regret this. After all, some people are easier to be played than a guitar.
XxXxXxX
(Meanwhile, in the Nemesis throne room)
"Why is Predaking not back yet?! Why are the clones not destroyed?!" Yelled a voice in anger. The yeller was none other than Megatron, and nearby was Shockwave, Soundwave, and Starscream. Starscream started sputtering, Soundwave pulled up a question mark on his visor, and Shockwave answered.
"It would seem my calculations were off. There was a 99.389% chance that the Autobots would destroy the entire thing within the first fifteen minutes. Predaking should have returned not long after. Let me recheck my calculations. Oh... And may I suggest sending someone to check to see what happened?"
Megatron growled, before replying. "Starscream, take a few Seekers with you. And don't come back until you find out what happened!"
"Of course Lord Megatron. Right away." Starscream clumsily bowed and left the room. Better to finish this quickly and report to Megatron than to fail and risk his wrath. For now, anyway. XxXxXxX
Zane, deciding to let Predaking think for a while, left the cave and teleported to the top of the cliff. He grabbed the metal balls and stuffed them into his pocket. He watched as a Groundbridge opened up in the distance, and out came four jets. As they neared, Zane pulled out his IPod and sent a quick email to "I'm Da Boss". A moment later, three dark clouds and Stinger appeared behind Zane. The clouds soon disappeared and in their place were five Hobgoblins apiece, along with a Minotaur. As they appeared, Zane ran to hide behind some trees.
The jets transformed and landed on the cliff facing the Vex and Stinger.
"What are you? You look like no Autobots nor Decepticon I know of."
"That is because we are neither of those." Replied Stinger. Starscream paused at that, before a mischievous grin appeared on his face.
"Oh really? Well, you should join the Decepticons. We will be victorious in this war and you may prove to be of some use."
Getting annoyed by Starscream's voice, Zane walked out. Starscream startled before frowning and walking over to him.
"Oh, it's an insect. I'll squish it."
At that exact moment, all of the Vex and Stinger powered up their weapons and aimed at Starscream. Before the Decepticons could do anything, Zane threw another metal ball on the ground in front of the seekers. It popped open, and a small green shard that was within grew to the size of a car. One of the Goblins shot it, causing it to burst into miniscule shards that flew through the air, hitting everything, but most concentrated in the Seekers' chassis. A single shard hit Starscream, causing him to live up to his name before fainting. What was in the Seekers, though, were enough to kill them, according to Zane's estimate.
A loud boom accompanied the falls of Starscream and the corpses, causing Zane to flinch. Five Goblins went over to the Seekers and fizzled out of existence, leaving only the Tox-En shards behind. The rest of the Goblins collected the Tox-En and fizzled out. Zane kicked Starscream, and, when he got no reaction, focused. A purple glow appeared around Zane and Starscream. Starscream floated up into a standing position before being set down on his feet and purple shackles appeared on his servos and stabilizing servos. It hardened into a black metal, with the more chains appearing from the shackles to connect to the ground.. Then, Zane created a glowing purple laptop that fashioned itself into a real one.
Zane set it down on the ground, the camera facing Starscream, and started recording a video. He also used Starscream's comms to send it through to the Nemesis and Rafael's laptop. He slowly walked to the offline Starscream, arriving there just after Stinger, the only other one visible on-screen. Stinger spoke in a voice full of disdain and hatred, yet held an almost regal tone.
"Autonomous Robotic Organisms and Deceptive Constructs from the planet Cybertron. We are here to make you pay for the war crimes you have committed against both Cybertron and Earth. The inhabitants of Earth are innocent, and so they should never have been pulled into a war that had already killed billions.
"This army of mine, those Chosen to protect Earth from your tyranny, have prepared for a long time and are able to defeat your simple foot soldiers. We have proven our ability to hold our own, case in point Starscream. He was easier than an overcharged pleasure drone. Now, if you wish to have him back, I am sure you will find a tradeable item with a value equal to or greater than this pile of scrap."
Before Stinger could continue, a loud roaring was heard. A large mechanical dragon ran from the cave below and flew up into the video. It stood by Zane's side and glared at the camera.
"Ah, you may know this mech. Predaking. He is quite mad at your betrayal, Megatron. But, thankfully, we arrived here long before the Autobots had the chance to find the Energon signal. You have all earned his ire. We have came to an agreement that will end your factions forever. May the best faction win."
And with that, Zane walked back to the laptop and stopped the video. Then, the group fizzled out of existence.
XxXxXxXx
(At the Autobot base)
"Hey, someone is sending me a live video titled 'To the Transformers, with much Disdain'. Here, I will pull it up on the screen." Yelled Rafael. The Autobots came to the room, along with Jack and Miko. They stared at Starscream, while Miko burst out laughing. She calmed down slightly when a red mech strode into view, then frowned like the rest when a person dressed in a black mask and all black clothes walked on. The mech spoke then, in a voice full of disdain and hatred, while holding a noble tone.
"Autonomous Robotic Organisms and Deceptive Constructs from the planet Cybertron. We are here to make you pay for the war crimes you have committed against both Cybertron and Earth."
"Crimes against Earth? What does he mean?" Asked Rafael innocently.
The Autobots looked at each other, saved from having to answer by the mech continuing.
"The inhabitants of Earth are innocent in our war, so they should never have been brought in. This army of mine, those Chosen to protect Earth from your tyranny, have prepared for a long time and are able to defeat your simple foot soldiers. We have proven our ability to hold our own, case in point Starscream. He was easier than an overcharged pleasure drone. Now, if you wish to have him back, I am sure you will find a tradeable item with a value equal to or greater than this pile of scrap."
At the description of Starscream, Miko started laughing all over again. The whole group flinched when a loud roar was heard, followed by a giant mechanical dragon leaping up into the video. It stood by the masked person, glaring at the camera. The Autobots looked surprised to see Predaking, especially with the human. The mech continued with his speech.
"Ah, you may know this mech. He goes by the designation of Predaking. He is quite mad at your betrayal, Megatron. But, thankfully, we arrived here long before the Autobots had the chance to find the Energon signal. You have all earned his ire. We have came to an agreement that will end your factions forever. May the best faction win."
At this point, Ratchet looked like glitching was all but inevitable. Miko, being Miko, had to blurt out her opinion.
"Yeah, right. Bulkhead could beat them with his eyes closed. Am I right or am I right?!"
Finally, the voice of reason, Rafael spoke.
"What signal is he talking about? Wouldn't we have found the signal for Energon?"
"Normally, Raf, we would. But, there are ways to hide the signal, though it gets harder the more Energon there is.."
"Do we need to worry?" Jack asked, already starting to feel very worried.
"I do not know, Jack, I do not know." replied Optimus Prime "He does not look like any mech I know of. Nor have I ever heard of the Chosen. We may need to ask the Decepticons, they may know more."
Ratchet went over to the computers to try to communicate with the Decepticons, but was interrupted by a screen popping up, showing Shockwave, Soundwave, and, of course, Megatron. Megatron looked furious.
{_~_}
"Well, this is bad." Said Jack. The Autobots and Decepticons have been talking about the whole incident for a few minutes. They only started yelling a few times. Then, Shockwave spoke up.
"You know, they are probably still at the lab, there is a 62.729% chance we can surprise them and end this before it begins, 95.928 if we work with the Autobots. We need to also destroy the Predaking clones, before they can get stronger. We need to stop them before they become a worse problem."
Both factions stared at Shockwave in shock and surprise, before Ratchet replied.
"Shockwave has a point." The factions turned their attention to Ratchet "What? He's right; we need to stop them. They captured Starscream, presumably killed three seekers, and seems to have Predaking on their side. Don't forget, they mimicked our appearance. They are obviously very powerful." Optimus vented, but spoke.
"Very well. But, we will first attempt to make contact and make peace. We will only fight as a last resort."
"Fine, Prime. If that is what it takes." Megatron spat.
XxXxXxX
The assembled group were outside of the entrance to the cave. Within the group was Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Ultra Magnus, and Arcee. The Decepticons were Megatron, Shockwave, Soundwave, and a couple Vehicons. The group noticed the offline Vehicons, and were confused to not see any marks. Both Arcee and Soundwave took scans, and sent it to their respective medic. A video appeared on Soundwave's visor, showing a worried Knockout.
"Don't get any closer!" Megatron stood up straight, as he was bending over to inspect the corpse.
"They seem to have died from contact with Tox-En; more specifically, an aerosolized Tox-En."
The assembled stared, then looked at the entrance to the cave. Optimus then spoke.
"Soundwave, would it be possible for you to scan the cave for traces of Energon and Tox-En?" A green check appeared on his visor, then, after a few moments, an image of the cave's layout along with a green check. With that, Optimus strode into the cave, followed by the rest of the group.
XxXxXxX
Soon, they reached the huge cavern. There wasn't a spark anywhere to be seen, not even in the capsules. Every single one of the Predacons was gone, and the floor was drenched in the stasis fluid. The group went up to Shockwave's computer to see if there was anything on it. As they walked towards it, they looked around in suspicion for anything with malicious intent. They eventually reached the computer and Shockwave turned it on. The moment he did, however, music started playing from all of the empty capsules.
It was a haunting melody, one that spoke of pain and abandonment. It played for a few moments, bringing back memories of Cybertron and every time that any of the assembled Transformers had been let down or had let others down. While they were all lost in thought, Optimus remembering the fall of Cybertron, Arcee the loss of her partners, Bumblebee of the bombing of the sparkling sector, Ultra Magnus of whenever a teammate perished, Bulkhead of when Miko was put in danger, Megatron of when he was passed over for Prime, Soundwave of his childhood, and the Vehicons of whenever Megatron beat up their friends. The only one unaffected by the music, mainly due to not caring about anything other than his experiments, was Shockwave.
He was the one to first notice the purple clouds that started to form in the back of the cave. However, he was unable to warn anyone since a hologram of the red mech appeared . The group was silent as it spoke.
"To make this a bit less personal, I am recording a message for you. I thought you may like to know I underestimated you, I would never have thought you were all so idiotic that you would never come back here. Well, I suppose I did, as is evidenced by this. Now, I regret to inform you I was sure not to leave anything around for you to use.
Second, thank you for being distracted for so long. It allowed for enough time for-"
A large mech fell on Ultra Magnus from above. It was large enough to force Ultra Magnus to the ground, though as soon as he went down it started trying to pry his hands open, as if trying to get ahold of the Forge of Solus Prime. Ultra Magnus realized this quickly, and started trying to fling the crazy mech off of him.
-That to happen. Have fun!" The mech sounded cheery and continued to stand there, looking in the general area of the skirmish.
While trying to get the mech off, one of Ultra Magnus' energon lines got cut on the sharp edges of the kamikaze mech. The rest of the group had started trying to help Ultra Magnus, but were forced to defend themselves when an assortment of robots appeared from the purple clouds and rushed the group of Transformers.
Ultra Magnus managed to overpower the attacking mech and threw it into one of the stasis pods, breaking the glass and getting trapped under the debris. Before he was able to go help the rest of the Autobots, however, he felt a pair of arms wrap around his waist, something stabbing into his waist as they did so, and a weight crash into the back of his legs. He went tumbling backwards, and felt the other mech quickly crawl around his side and grab the Forge of Solus Prime. The silver mech jumped out of the way as Ultra Magnus swiped at him, and then did a little victory dance. Ultra Magnus rushed forward to try to tackle the insane mech, but went crashing back to the ground when the mech disappeared in a flash of purple.
Ultra Magnus, after picking himself up off the ground, looked over to the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons, and saw they were getting overwhelmed by the hordes of robots. However, a large flash filled the cavern before he was able to join in.
When it faded away a moment later, not only had the robots melted and the hologram gone, but there was also a boy in the center of the cave. He was looking around, a slightly dazed and very peculiar look on his face. . He gazed around, before staring at the Autobots and Decepticons.
"Well, this is not a sight you see everyday." He said curiously, as if he was a entomologist studying a never-before seen insect.
"Prime, did you scan him? He has Allspark radiation." Asked Megatron, shock clear in his voice.
The boy looked sheepish, before continuing.
"I think I may have some explaining to do. Maybe we should go to the Autobot base, that way I can talk without me having to worry about my health, whether mental or physical."
"Very well, if that is what you wish." Said Optimus diplomatically, knowing what the reactions would be. He wasn't disappointed.
"Hey!" Growled Megatron "What's wrong with my ship?"
"Many things Megaturd. Many things." After a moment, what the boy said registered in everyone's mind. Bumblebee beeped in laughter, Bulkhead let out a single hearty laugh, Arcee frowned in thought, and Optimus almost cracked a smile beneath his faceplate. Almost.
Megatron snarled, before replying.
"You'll pay for that..."
Finally, Optimus commed Ratchet for a Groundbridge, and the group walked through it.
XxXxXxX XxXxXxX
I apologize for the wait, as I had a busy winter. Please review and comment.